Whats behind the record rise in global cope with 19 infections several countries are reporting some of the biggest numbers since the pandemic began should we be worried him or look down is the answer this is its a story. Hello and welcome to the program on iraq on nearly 9 months since coded 19 from the chinese city of would have the virus appears to be spreading faster than ever all around the world some countries are reporting their highest daily infection rates. India parts of 3000000. 00 cases of the recording just under 70000. 00 on sunday researchers say infections have leveled off in its 2 largest cities mumbai and new delhi but rising quickly in poor rural areas south korea a country praised for its initial handling of the pandemic has reported its high list daily total since march the government may bring back strict social distancing roles including closing businesses and schools couldnt they cave in 1000. 00 continues to spread across the country more than 300 new cases were reported every day over the last 3 days the number of patients is increasing not only in the metropolitan area but in all of the countries 17 major cities and provinces we are facing the crisis of a mass firing spreading across the country the latin America Region has reported 17000 deaths over the past week but the World Health Organization says the daily infection rate in the worst affected country brazil is leveling off germany france spain and italy are recording rising daily totals however italys Health Minister is rolling out a new lockdown its a sentiment shared by the w. H. O. Director general look downs are not a long Term Solution for any country we do not need to choose between lives and livelihoods or between how and the economy that of choice on the contrary the pandemic is a reminder that how and the economy are inseparable. Lets bring in our guests and london. A front line urgent care doctor in the u. K. S National Health Service or the n. H. S. In hong kong ara scene m r a geriatrician im president of the hong kong public dont his association and in boston matthew fox professor of epidemiology at bostons University School of Public Health a warm welcome to you all id like to begin in boston with you matthew fox we his so much about numbers rising about numbers for ling we has so much about what these numbers might mean whether theyre going to have an impact on peoples livelihoods on peoples lives but what do these numbers actually mean what does it mean when cases go up because 9 months on it seems to me that we dont really have a handle on the statistics its there its right its a really complicated to try to understand these numbers by themselves so looking at the number of cases of course important but looking at a number of cases by themselves doesnt really tell us the whole story as cases go up obviously we want to take action to try and mitigate the impact but we also want to look at the percent of people who are testing positive so all the tests that were doing what proportion of those are tested positive we want to see that number below because thats an indication that were doing enough testing to be able to stay ahead of the epidemic and then finally we want to look at the severity of the infection so we also want to look at number of hospitalizations and eventually the number of deaths and obviously we want to see those coming down in order to know that were doing a good job at responding to the pandemic era cinema in hong kong i just heard that the hong kong authorities are going to introduce a citywide mandatory test for all its citizens is that one way forward is that something we should be looking at for the global i know its difficult but is it the any way forward. Actually there pro ever ok to. Our whole population screening day has not yet go to the mandates restates but theyre actively. Asked of the whole population to join those are some of the Health Care Workers some of the experts really questions whether at this stage whole populations screening for those silence carrier is it news photo d control that the cs expression only actually we has not have enough resources to do all that context raising or do early testing for outbreak high risk group. Are similar in london is this the way forward then is home combs model a good one or is a simply impossible to employ to apply in any city larger than say in a w2w people. I think im testing is definitely the way forward in this respect that youll be able to find people who maybe see could be infected and hence try and cut down the spread of the virus but the problem is they need to be tested at source so for example if these tests need to be implemented when youre walking into a shop these tests to be implemented and the issue with the tests are if youre negative now it doesnt mean you cant catch it will show signs slightly later on so theyre not as effective as they are not down but financially were stuck in a situation were not down with the economy starts to crash so the road difficult situation very difficult are as we did in with but nothing follows then what is the point of these statistics why even have them as a make trick so we want to monitor these numbers so that we can be able to intervene in places where numbers start to go up so if we dont take action as the number of cases starts to go up and as the percent positivity starts to go up then we know that whats going to happen is the number of hospitalizations and the number of deaths are going to start to go up if on the other hand we react to these these statistics by getting people even through actions that are not as severe as lockdowns but just getting people to wear masks keep their distance from people as much as they possibly can that we have the ability to bring down the number of cases even without full lock downs and that really is the best bet that we have until we have vaccine available at a cinema in a country like india where 3000000 new cases have been registered surely its i mean india is and many a 1000000000 people surely it should be you know a percentage of the population rather than the actual numbers and the percentage figure might give us a much more accurate picture of whats going on is the way that is its a state the statistics are reported a problem. I think the statistic is so can be quite a misleading sometimes of course that is to itself and also give some good pictures expression for the policy make before the citizen is so over all for d the front to Health Care Workers d sometimes statistic can be quite misleading but most importantly i we need to look at this statistic to the actual situation in thats come millett t. For example like. Some developing countries or d country that with large populations problem a large number of population actually is in a low income class a very poor hygiene and poor Living Environment that to stick is self cannot give you as a thing so Different Countries are in different stage of the theses in some country like hong kong and south korea we have a certain stage of combat that the seas we have prior stage we tried to resume the Economic Activity misunderstood that of the 80 and the deceased come back for some country like south america or india they have never come back to these seas that this is keep going on in a high rise state but at the same time the economy and the life of the whole populations are also in the very difficult situation its interesting in a similar particular in the u. K. The economy for the British Government is a big driver of trying to open things up but its also the one thing that will make this worse it will spread cases if that if it opens up without precautions is the is their way of separating the 2 alike the. B. H. O. Story maintains its not just lives as livelihoods as well and you just have to deal with that. I think that situation the u. K. Is possibly around the world a lot of businesses are closing down because they will one by one dependent upon each other so for example the restaurants depend on consumers to the time that the Restaurant Industry does the me markets the meat markets you know the farmers except for so its a domino effect and lock down is excellent but it has to be done very efficiently to you know control the virus with which around the world so far has included the u. K. When the lockdown took place the virus dropped considerably which was good because of the n. H. S. We were in a very difficult situation because you know we were getting nonstop patients coming in called look coming in i mean some of the call the returning of the you know more than 4 hours because just the huge shock of the system you know with this wireless so things have calmed down and the good news is because were in the summer at the moment theres less people coughing less issues going on so the virus the yanks especially dont see it and because they dont see anybody getting ill they assume its not around now i know if you know my friends whove had it and they have told me that you know they feel bad and bruised for a long time after you know coming over the initial symptoms so what i was told the youngsters in a wire friends are not guys this is going to have an impact on you now and if you feel ok they may be long term implications which we dont know about such as lung scarring so its a very difficult balance but when it comes to the economy if people havent got money in the pocket and food to feed their family they are going to go out unfortunately work so this is a very very difficult situation were all in at the moment matthew fox is a look down again our guest in london said lockdown is a is a great thing it does work but you cant its not an indefinite thing at the very beginning of the pandemic people were suggesting that the whole world should just go into lockdown just to get a sense of the numbers just to get a sense of where it is i mean if everybody shut down all at the same time and stop global ad traffic as one example of that would that help or is that just simply impossible and be no health little. Well it would be helpful i mean theres no doubt that if we were seen examples of lock downs that have been highly effective at bringing down the number of cases and that has the knock on effect of reducing hospitalizations and reducing the number of deaths about 3 to 3 or 4 weeks later so absolutely it would work but its it seems to me streaming out likely that we could ever coordinate that world to do an entire lockdown that would be able to last for long enough that we would be able to suppress the virus to a level at which we could start to continue to resume normal activity so well that it would be it would be effective i dont see it as being very reasonable if you just look here in the United States we could even get the entire t. Of the United States to shut down in coordination so doing that across the world just doesnt seem feasible or a cinema so it would help but its actually impossible so theyre full we just have to live with this virus now we have to change our behavior has and that is that is what we need to do however thats still going to have an impact on the economy even if the social distancing rules in place and all of us will stuff it well abbott and impacts how long is living with the virus sustainable. Actually i think 1st of all if we need to calculate a sort of Economic Impact we can take was sort of what is the minimal Economic Activity we need in order to make the d whole society or d the whole economy system still working but actually to. Not go not going to wallow in that population the other thing is actually re i know that there is for example recently a German University they had taken experiments. Was mishas recanted. During a concert in order to cut been a number of infection but we can still enjoy the concerts so i think we now we know more and more was sort of at of a ts bring the transmission most for example at the video desk make you take down your mosque a devotee debt make use of it to get or a devotee does the last corporate people this happen in south korea when they have a big outbreak in a group of Church People the same as in hong kong we are all great seems to related to our 100 people on a dining. Day take down them are saying and danced so we now find us some sort of the to higher risk some sort is some sort of having is is slower is still a more experiment more experience can tell us what sort of a to materie can resume or sort of precaution rikan take in order to cut down the transmission maybe release nguni we still expect there is a small number of cases in there so sad to be. On and off but before that especially before the vaccination but if the number itself actually. Within the capacity of our head. Of course this town maybe really need to get along with it and theres still some sort of Economic Activity is safe d thats something you write as one of the questions i want to put to as an ally what were looking at is not just about the economy is its about strain on the Health Care Services its about how Health Care Services can cope if theres a certain percentage of cases that can happen then maybe its better to allow those to happen knowing the Health Care System can cope with it and that brings the economy back on but is that of a false. Dichotomies of a is it just a false word i think the issue is twofold so either we be sensible wait for a vaccine to come out which is something i am very proactive for i think you know if were masks wed be sensible i think we can control this considerably because you know this is not like the measles virus where you know the virus to be floating around for a couple of hours after you left the room the coronavirus sensually of cough and it will go down and itll be pretty much dead soon if no ones around you so its quiet relatively easy to control if you be sensible wear a mask keep your distance etc so thats the aim and the wait for a vaccine to come and then things can be you know taken back to normal or somewhat back to normal the other side of it is obvious the n. H. S. There is a part of me that thinks people getting infected now is allowing us to cope because as the some other viruses are not around so much so we are able to cope come December November december where were a bit worried because a you have lots of coughs colds flu etcetera flying around in the air except this time around instead of the normal influenza being caught for one person its another we worried that it may be the cough coronavirus cough chronograph so they could be a huge exponential infection rate of growth of our submission our worry going towards the winter periods in london or a cinema you want to make a comment about the strain on the Health Care Services. Actually also. In order to have care system also need to decide their own more though that how how to handle that for example like in singapore. d this the they also have a large outbreak among those foreign work this for a man you work is and the way to handle it is not allow all of them get into the hospital they build up some isolation and caring facilities and Exhibition Centers quite simple but actually effective as well hong kong run from them as well. In the reason wave we have hundreds of cases every day actually if we all get them a meter to the hospital a hospital will come out fully occupied but we also learn from the singapore we build some temporary isolation and treatment places in the. Exhibition center to attend though those young and relative well patients so i think every country need to build their own system own style how to cope with that disease it may be intermediate and long term my few folks in boston everybodys talking about the vaccine vaccine is what were waiting for a vaccine is what we need. How it is going to take a little while for vaccine to get on the market im sure this want to be rushed to go in the market theres far too much money to be made so it will get to the market at some point quite quickly im sure but is the vaccine the own so because the 23 month will be covered by this particular vaccine that we get from done team you know these things do you tell you right. So we dont know for sure what a vaccine is going to look like but if i had to guess its not likely to be a vaccine that 100 percent effective and we already know that u. B. C. Here in the us surveys that show that only about 70 percent of people have said they will take the vaccine when its available so you put those 2 numbers together and a vaccine itself isnt going to be the end to the problem but a vaccine that was was reasonably effective and a reasonable course of the population took it would certainly bring down the transmission to a point at which this would become a much more manageable d condition much like seasonal flu and so that is certainly what we are hoping for but thats going to take some time i think the best estimates at this point are that were really talking about some time middle of next year before theres large Scale Distribution of a vaccine and so its just going to take some time d. You know you said that the and that this vaccine way does come out my only be 70 percent effective is there a case in the past of another vaccine that has been very popular but is about 70 percent effective is there a case study can use to allay peoples faces about taking the vaccine. I think seasonal flu is is one of the best examples that we have this you know flu vaccine isnt a panacea and yet we know that if we get a reasonably good vaccine if we distributed to a reasonable person of a population that can bring down the Community Transmission to a point at which we can at least continue our activities as normal seasonal flu doesnt shut down the economy now it is true that that covert is certainly more deadly than seasonal flu but having that vaccine is as one way to bring down the the amount of transmission and to keep it manageable is an example of what we could be trying to follow with with kobe when a vaccine is available in london you had or matthew fox had to say what do you think do you still think a vaccine is what we should be doing full i think we all need to hope for something and i think of that scene eventually will be something which can stabilize the system and thats not the said its not going to get rid of it but same of the flu vaccine we can save many lives just like in somebodys only patients and asked not to patients and high risk patients that seemed like the flu vaccine i think something similar would be a great achievement especially if its within 2 years i think that would be an amazing achievement or a sentiment you think a vaccine is likely in the next 10 years. Actually i know that for some of the western country devices are already in the face off their experiment and in some places like russia and china they almost they also they they even announce that vex is a viable for them objects of course in countries in russia and china actually know not much how the experiment how the. To study conducted so the safety of the vaccine acts as well as the effectiveness. Being questionable. So about a bass in there is to haul rimini 2 cars see the 1st of all whether its effective or whether its safe secondly whether it is readily available expression leave for some country as what we mentioned before the south American Country that an american to india some low income country whether they can afford to invest in whether the rest in country can a distant will divest into judos countries shes a point im really thought about before matthew felling so in boston our guest in hong kong i said well actually we dont know about the chinese vaccine we dont know about the russian vaccine because we dont know the studies weve done and how they came to that is it time to take a leaf from the tech sites and have open Source Technology on a vaccine get it all out there so we can all sorts of look at it or do you think the way the medical health care will to set up that will never happen i think that the way that the medical care system is set up thats just that is unlikely to happen but i do think that would be a good thing and i certainly think that cherry of the information that were learning throughout these trials is going to be of critical importance to developing strategies not only for doing the problem that were at right now but planning for future epidemics and making sure that we have the best available d strategies to be able to. Deliver it to act as quickly as we possibly can but do you matthew do you trust the russians and the chinese with their idea of. Well i think its we dont have any information at this point to be able to say whether these are effective vaccines so to me if the idea that we would have a vaccine this prickly that we could actually know was both safe and effective isnt isnt really a state that takes a large number of patients and they have to be followed over a reasonable period of time to be able to know that these vaccines are in fact doing what we want them to do in terms of effectively protecting people but also that they are safer people are they are causing side effects and as i mentioned before we have a problem here in the United States of many places with Vaccine Hesitancy people not wanting to get vaccines because theyre concerned about the safety so if we roll out of a scene early that doesnt actually have the Scientific Data behind it to prove that it is safe and effective thats going to cause long term problems not only for their current vaccine in the Current Situation were in but for other vaccines so we really do have to be careful that we are actually running out of time but i do want to come back to you on this this idea of the Vaccine Hesitancy people actually being scared of taking vaccines has been around for a while now has it changed in the u. K. Globally since you sense kevin 19 i think the situation there are people that will not take the vaccine and i think this is misinformation that space you can google and other Big Companies to control it because we have children who have not been you know given the m. M. R. Vaccine a few years ago and now you know we have breakouts of measles for example in the parents a shocked will why is my child suddenly got needles and we have to tell them well fortunately it is your fault because you do not give the back seat and people dont understand until it hits them directly so i think they need to be Huge Campaign wants the vaccine is released for the greater good of everybody look this vaccine is not there for a reason and if everyone takes it we can have very high control of the virus but if people are not taking it will the vaccine is not going to be as effective for those who havent taken etc so the herd i mean she would never be reached as we want so i think it will come down to education education and education. I do want to thank all our guests as an alleged. Matthew fox and thank you to you for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot call and further discussion as well facebook pages facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter we are at a j inside story for me imran khan and the entire team here and i found out. She and her disease account 50 only gets children. To sleep and child. You just leave 60. 6. The 21st century began with extraordinary Economic Growth across much of latin america. But since this halted in 2008 theres been a political shift to the right on a continent where socialism once thrived to. Politician goes on a journey to me leading left wing figures to understand why that politics have lost ground so dramatically. Latin america a giant in turmoil on aljazeera. Your child is a musical robin and reminder of all top news stories in bella ruse nice to make the 200000 people have rallied in the capital the demanding president alexander lukashenko. Contested reelection but hes refusing to resign mr basson reports now from an. After week of threats coming from this is a reply from the people of ballarat. Tens of thousands took to the streets of minsk in defiance the a fear replaced by anger while im sol just and police were standing by families with small child